Was about to ask the same question via text. From what I can see in his blog, he has been working with building blocks / lego lol. I'm sure it's been a good week, lots of names to forget, loads to take in etc. The way they usually are! And where is day 8 of your 365? Bit to early to give up! I'm sure your just busy

Its been good yeah, abit overwhelming, basically first 3 days was sitting in lecture theaters doing H&S talks, meeting the MD and senior managers, tea, biscuits, meeting people, and getting used to it, getting badges, ID's etc, to be honest 1st day or 2 of that was good to settle in (its a massive high money company, so abit overwhelming for a 1st career job)

thurs/fri was actually in the lab, looking at what im actually doing, and thankfully its incredibly interesting. Basically the company makes and manufacturers medical testing equipment as said......and every time you need to test someone you need new chemicals/tags/equipments for each patient, so thats what the plant makes, in short these all have to be very very very accurate, theres about 3 labs that make up the solutions and what not for the kits, and I've managed to land myself the best lab job - im basically in the odds and sods lab where there is near no repetative lab work it turns out, every day is different, which is interesting, but makes it 10 times harder to get your head round. So yeah im the R&D lab in short, better money than the other labs but harder as said, I've somehow jumped the mundane repetitive lab work and gone to this, which im happy with.

Anyways im sure you didnt want to be bored but thats mostly it in a nut shell, I wont delve into more detail unless you request ! lol, my working day now consists of 8.30 a team meeting (10 top scientist people who devise the experiments, 7 of us science techs, and the head honjo of our team who coordinates everything) and we all have to say out loud to the group what we have on that day - scary at 1st ! lol, then off to the labs to perform and do the experiments. So far I've done machine maintenance, an experiment on various heart cell markers that indicate if someone who had a heart attack had one for overdose, and am part of a ongoing scheme to test if shipping the products around the world and to various climates effects the results from the kits (there always shipped cool, but if you go to africa with kits, the heat could denature them, so were finding out if this happens even when packed well )

And yeah a few other bits and bobs ! lol /chatter

EDIT: Oh yeah the -20 , - 30 and - 80 walk in freezers are SO MUCH FUN, ya nose hair freezes instantly and it feels warm at 1st (in the colder freezers) as you skin instantly becomes numb, haha, these are huge freezers though, you could fit in like 10 cars easy enough and they also have the biggest fridge in wales apparently ,about size of 2 aircraft hangers.

Yeah I can certainly imagine that, it's just interesting that they use that meeting style, it's really unusual in this country. I'm curious to know why, they did move a load of work from LA to Wales apparently, I wonder if they brought people in from the States?

Yeah I can certainly imagine that, it's just interesting that they use that meeting style, it's really unusual in this country. I'm curious to know why, they did move a load of work from LA to Wales apparently, I wonder if they brought people in from the States?

Yeah - whys it unusual ? I've no comparison, used to have monthly meetings in retail ! lol, I can see why it works, the place is highly efficient.

As far as I can figure out, they (Siemens) had close ties with a pharmaceutical company in Caernarfon, and were working with an investments with them, and they clocked DPC near that. DPC was looking for a buyer, Siemens took the opportunity to buy out both companies at once, and more or less instantly own an entire medical industry from no market presence to the leading market presence, apparently they wouldn't of bought anything if they didnt get to no.1 instantly, and they have, now there working on increasing there market share, and are doing so considerably. Add to this the very attractive benefits to opening an industry that the welsh assembly was offering the company (to obviously boost work in Wales), it was to good an opportunity to pass up on, so they moved there entire medical stuff over here, I think for now though radiological stuffs staying over the pond for a couple more years and is moving here, hope that gives you a rough idea You seem to be very interested Mr Chris in the general goings on of companies , this your business eye seeing what the companies of the world are up 2 ?

I am interested, I find companies pretty fascinating. Working as a supplier has always meant I've been going into alsorts of businesses and finding out about them, plus of course being involved in running one. It's like anything, you get enough exposure to it and you start to care more about it, notice things people do and want to know the reasoning behind it.

Having daily morning meetings just struck me as something a little different, something more Japanese or American and I am interested in how that came about getting implimented.

There's alsorts of odd cultural ways businesses operate that can be fascinating, it's a little like those HSBC adverts where they show how eating your plate clean when taken out for a meal with a Japanese business man is a rude way of suggesting you aren't full because he didn't buy you a proper meal.

eating your plate clean when taken out for a meal with a Japanese business man is a rude way of suggesting you aren't full because he didn't buy you a proper meal.

I love cultural details like that. Fascinating stuff. I particularly like the Japanese culture simply because it's so extreme. Their geography has made them. Because Japan is so mountainous and there's so little room for farming and cultivation they were forced into "packed" communities well before industrialisation etc, and their entire "politeness" culture grew from that - the only way to deal with it was to be exceedingly polite. I love that they make gardens out of tiny patches of ground, or even stones - there was no space to have real gardens.

And then you have the natural counter-culture; because Japan is traditionally so very polite they have an over-the-top seeming counter culture - which is why you can buy worn panties from vending machines in the street, and all sorts of crazy hardcore cartoons, all of which are kind-of taboo, but actually well tolerated. Interestingly the geography is also why the Japanese men have a reputation for fascination with big breasts - due to the limited diet of the Japanese it was very rare for girls to grow big breasts. So big breasts were/are very unusual and highly prized. That's changing now there's food imports and McDonalds.

Only in Japan can it be seen as a grave insult to eat everything you're given - and yet perfectly normal for school kids to play a game called Kancho, wherby they ram their fore-finger up unsuspecting people's bum hole (for real, read about it on a Japanese teacher's blog, kids kept trying to get them).

Yeah I remember the Kancho thing (ONE THOUSAND YEARS OF PAIN!). I believe Japans counter culture comes from a national shame in the way they acted in WW2, both in the way they fought and the way they treated their own people. I actually prefer the sound of the old Japan than the naff self parodying theme park it seems to have become and the tinternet seems so obsessed with liking.

Japan is interesting (extreme) but all parts of the world have fascinating business cultures. Staying with Japan though they have a very ugly work ethic where people believe their efforts should be judged on how many hours they work, they have a real problem with workers suffering exhuastion by working as many hours as they can. They also have a lot of forced social and physical activities workers have to participate in. Sadly they also have a backwards looking hierarchy where workers and made to look like and are treated like slaves and the heads of the business like royalty.

Germany I find more interesting because they are so similar to the UK but at the same time so different. Germans effectively have the same structure in business that we do, and a similar way of operating but the way tasks and people are treated is very different. For instance in the UK your naverage car factory assembly worker is considered typically working class, someone you expect reads the Sun and idea of a cultured evening consists of watching football at the local. Whereas in Germany the same person doing the same job is highly respected and behaves highly professional. It's no freak occurance that German cars are traditionally better built than British ones, the people building them are treated with more respect and thus more is expected from them.

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